AFP, Washington

A team of surgeons in New York has performed the world’s first transplant of an entire eye in a procedure widely hailed as a medical breakthrough, although it isn’t yet known whether the man will ever see through the donated eye. The groundbreaking surgery involved removing part of the face and the whole left eye -- including its blood supply and optic nerve -- of a donor and grafting them onto Aaron James, 46. Doctors at NYU Langone Health, a leading medical centre for facial transplants, carried out the procedure on May 27. Transplanting an entire eye has long been a holy grail of medical science, and though researchers have had some success in animals -- where they have restored partial vision -- it’s never before been performed in a living person. “It’s uncharted territory, but we’re looking forward to the exploration,” Eduardo Rodriguez, who led the surgery, told AFP in an interview. It was Rodriguez’ fifth face transplant.